Page 2289 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
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But I think we understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, that this government is pursuing the City to Gungahlin line because that is the one which goes through Mr Rattenbury’s electorate. It does not go through the electorate that goes up to where poor old Meredith Hunter was. She has been left out in the cold as Mr Rattenbury makes sure that this is to his political advantage. Some $640 million as an absolute minimum to make sure that Mr Rattenbury can go back to preselection and make sure that he gets the ticket in front of Carolyn Le Couteur. It is about as base as that, because none of the other evidence stacks up. None of it stacks up.
Infrastructure Australia has criticised the government for not considering other routes, and this is what Infrastructure Australia said:
It is not clear how shortlisted options were selected from the list of potential options. There is limited information on the rationale for excluding options, and inadequate consideration of reform options.
And then God knows where we would end up, Madam Deputy Speaker, with phase 2, phase 3 and phase 4, if we ever got to that point, because the only sum that we have been able to look at based on the Gold Coast cost and extrapolating that on the government’s routes that they have put forward is $10.9 billion. Where is the money going to come from? And there will be people who pay. The government have said that increased parking charges will be assumed as part of this. So they are going to squeeze you out of parking to get you onto their light rail system. That is part of the plan.
And that is all very well for the people of Gungahlin, perhaps, who have got the option of getting on light rail. But as they ramp up parking in the city, what about the people in Belconnen who do not have those options, or Weston Creek or Woden, or the inner south? What about them? So, as the government are squeezing parking to try and get you onto their light rail because their numbers do not stack up without doing that, there is a lot of people who will paying.
What about the mothers who have got to drop off kids, who just simply cannot get onto light rail because it does not work for them? And we have a lot of others, a lot of women in our workforce, who simply cannot use light rail as an option and who will be punished by this government as they put up the prices.
There are so many questions that remain unanswered: the operational costs, the full infrastructure cost, how this will be delivered. What I say again very clearly, Madam Deputy Speaker, is that this government have not made the case. They have not made the case to build a light rail network. They have not made the case to build this particular aspect, the first phase of it, and, until we have the population density, the government need to put this on ice. They need to acknowledge that the case does not stack up. (Time expired.)
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Capital Metro) (11.48): This project is an important project for the future of our city. It is about reshaping the
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